


Hard Candy

by g_girl143



Series: #wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Apartment AU, Dark, F/M, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Murder, Reylo - Freeform, Suicide Attempt, dark apartment au, i didn't plan it like this, kylo x rey - Freeform, snoke if you squint hard, this turned out darker than i thought, wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 01:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7146248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_girl143/pseuds/g_girl143
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ex-con. A strange girl. A shared past. A tiny spark of light drowning in the dark.</p><p>Part of #wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo fic prompt day 2: Jawbreaker</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Candy

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE CHECK THE TAGS AS THIS IS A REALLY DARK FIC AND MAY NOT BE TO EVERYONE'S TASTE!
> 
> I know this is extremely delayed, but I was agonizing over the fic prompt because I'm the type who likes to think of other stuff so while jawbreakers usually mean sweetness, I apparently turned to the opposite side of the spectrum and came out with something really dark 0_0
> 
> I also was gonna explore this as a longer, multi chapter fic but somehow managed to find a way to make it a one shot. It's not for the faint of heart though so take caution as you read.

“Rey, stay with me. You’re going to be alright, okay?”

His voice was steady, his demeanour calm. Deep down, he couldn’t be more distraught. Her eyes were swollen shut, her nose bleeding, her jaw set in an unnatural angle, and he had to press a palm against her chest to make sure that she was still breathing.

It seemed to take forever for the paramedics to arrive, and when they did, they practically had to wrench her free from his arms.

Then came the police, and the slap of cold metal against his wrists as they led him to the station for further questioning. It took until daybreak for them to be satisfied that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. It always was hard for cops to believe anything an ex-con said. But after everything that had happened in the last several hours, he wasn’t just an ex-con.

He was an ex-con with a mission.

* * *

The first time he met her was when he moved in to Niima Aparments a few months ago, moving in what pitifully little things he had to his rented room. It wasn’t anything fancy. In fact, it was borderline seedy, the neighbourhood not at all like what he had grown up with, but here he could be invisible.

He had to be if he was going to avoid public scrutiny.

After putting the last of his clothes in the closet, he stuck his head out the window for some air, only to find a girl sitting precariously on the railing of the nearby fire escape, licking and sucking on a piece of round candy. The sounds and image she made were almost obscene, and he had to take a moment to clear his head.

“Hey, kid. Get off the railing. That’s dangerous.”

She turned to look at him then, her eyes—large and shadowed by something he couldn’t define—giving him a once over as her lips let go of the candy with a pop. He recognized it to be a jawbreaker.

“I’m not a kid,” she muttered, but got herself off the railing and onto the platform to face him fully. She was a small girl, loose brown hair capped under a red beanie, a gray long sleeved shirt two sizes too big hanging over boney shoulders, and knobby knees protruding over a slashed pair of jeans.

 “Sure, kid,” he replied, his fingers curling around the windowsill when she started licking the jawbreaker again. “You live around here?”

She smiled around the candy, or at least he thought she did. “New here aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Obviously.”

She stared at him in silence, eyes unblinking, lips dragging around the jawbreaker.

He gritted his teeth. “Will you stop that?”

“Stop what?” she asked, not without a hint of sing-songy innocence that made his knees buckle.

“You know what I mean.”

“Boy, someone’s got a stick up their ass.” She reached into her pocket, took out a square piece of foil and wrapped the jawbreaker in it. Was she actually planning to save that for later? “I’m Rey. I live right next door.”

He started to say ‘Ben’, but managed to stop himself. Ben Solo was long gone—buried by an unfair justice system, a prejudiced society, and hidden beneath long, unkempt hair, a moustache and a goatee. “Kylo. Kylo Ren.”

 “Huh.” She nodded, hazel eyes moving over his sleeveless top and black pants, eyelashes fluttering and lips forming into a lazy smile. “Mmm. You work out?”

“I...uh...work in construction.” He wasn’t exactly sure if that was the right response. Had this interaction come from a woman decked in makeup and dressed in a skinny little number, he would’ve been sure she was flirting with him. “How old are you anyway?”

“I’m legal, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She chuckled. “Eighteen. Why? You interested?”

Fuck, he thought, as he felt his cock scream out from the confines of his pants. He hadn’t gotten laid. Not in a very long time. And ten years was a damned long time.

“That’s not funny, kid,” he practically growled. “You don’t joke about stuff like that to complete strangers. It could get you in trouble with the wrong people real fast.”

 “Who said I was joking?”

That shadow again. Over her eyes. The girl was dead serious, and it made his skin grow suddenly hot.

He let his gaze move over her. She wasn’t unattractive. She was actually quite pretty. A little small in the tit department, but from what he saw earlier, she had a pretty nice ass and an overall good figure. But she looked a little bony, a little undernourished. A little... “Too young for me, kid. Go home.”

She only shrugged, her shirt sliding off a little to reveal a little more of her pale shoulders. Fuck. “Suit yourself. I’ll be next door if you need me or whatever.”

He watched her get off the railing and slide herself into the window next door, the curve of her ass teasing him for a moment before she disappeared inside.

He slammed the window shut, threw himself on the bed and freed his cock, careful to make as little noise as possible as he fisted his way to release, the mental image of the girl next door, sucking and licking on that hard candy still ghosting in his mind.

He’d been right to warn her about all the wrong people in the world. He was one of them.

* * *

Kylo kept himself scarce from the neighbours and even scarcer to Rey. Or at least, he tried to. The girl almost seemed to have a nose for whenever he was around—always hanging around the hallway, the stairwell or the fire escape, and always sucking and licking on that goddamned jawbreaker of hers. It was far from an unpleasant image, with those luscious lips around that round surface and that pink tongue sticking out to lick the sugary layers, but with their encounters and conversations becoming more frequent, jerking off to her was making him feel guiltier with every passing day.

He tried to convince himself that this was normal, that there was nothing wrong with fantasizing about a legally adult woman whom he happened to be attracted to. And it wasn’t like he was touching her for real or anything, yet part of him still screamed out that she was a child, and he was a monster, a fucking monster, and that she wasn’t seducing him, that it was all in his fucked up mind.

He wasn’t a monster. And he wasn’t about to become one.  Yet somehow, he managed to find himself in bed with the woman-child that was Rey, his hands over her small breasts as she hovered over him, their lips meeting and their tongues meshing. He could still taste the sugary sweetness of candy in her mouth.

She broke free from the kiss and trailed her lips down his body. He tried to think about how they got to this point. It might have involved Rey somehow getting herself a dinner invitation from him over at his apartment, and one thing led to another and...

Lips. Her lips were on his cock. Sucking and licking the way she usually did with those jawbreakers.

It was amazing.

It was exhilarating.

It was downright horrifying.

“No!” He pushed her back, harder than he had intended, almost making her fall off the bed. He stared at her wide-eyed, knowing without seeing that his shock mirrored hers.

He swung his legs to the side of the bed and buried his head in his hands, dark hair falling over his face. This was it, he thought. He fucked it up. Fucked everything up. He could never be with anyone. Not with Rey, not with anyone. He was too fucked up in the head. He would never be free of this pain.

After several long moments, he took a deep breath and turned to face her, only to find her gone, the only indication of her having ever been there an open window, and a fresh jawbreaker on the bed, with a note that said _“Life’s like a jawbreaker: you either give up coz it’s too hard, or you savor whatever sweetness it can give ‘til the very end.”_

He never saw her the day after that, or the next day or the next. It was as though she were nothing but a phantom his disturbed mind conjured to keep him sane.

That was until the day he found her lying in a heap in front of his door, with a bloodied face and a broken jaw, a note held tightly in a balled fist.

The note was addressed to Ben Solo.

_[Dear Ben,_

_First of all, I’m sorry for disappearing on you like that. I didn’t know what to do after I royally fucked up whatever we had, and I’ve probably fucked this up even more now that the truth is out that I’ve always known who you were.]_

He went to work as he usually did, making sure to call the hospital to check on Rey’s progress. She was talking a little now, but still needed to be kept on soft foods while her jaw was healing.

_[You see, we’re a lot alike, you and I. Hardened by experience and by the world. That’s what drew me to your case in the first place, because unlike me, you had the strength to face your monster. They call it murder, manslaughter, whatever. I call it poetic justice.]_

He smiled and waved goodbye to his co-workers. Casual acquaintances, most of them. He’d kept a professional distance, but today, he’d taken the time to have some burritos with them. It was a surprisingly fun group, and he regretted not having spent more time with them.

He didn’t regret stealing one of the crowbars from the site though and hiding it in the trunk of his car.

_[That man was a monster and he deserved nothing less, if not more for what he did to you and God knows how many others.]_

He moved his car to the back lot parking of Niima Apartment, checking to make sure he had the same things he had when he went on a similar mission ten years ago—gloves, a  black ski mask, rope, and of course, the crowbar. The trash bag, duct tape, and weights were a new addition. He wasn’t going to leave a body out in the open this time.

_[The day we met was the day I was about to jump off that railing. It had become too hard for me to bear and I didn’t see an end but seeing you, my childhood hero, alive and still trying to live despite everything you’ve been through gave me hope that I might not be as fucked up, used and dirty as I thought I was. That somehow, someone would still want me. That it was you who wanted me made me feel more alive than I’ve felt in years.]_

He bid his time, having learned the man’s schedule for the past several weeks, before entering the building, masked and carrying his gear.

_[If you’re reading this, then I’m probably dead. Because I’ve decided that enough is enough. I’ve spent ten years suffering under my monster but I know now that if I am to live my own life, I have to fight for it but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. But I’d rather die trying than live another second under his thumb.]_

He knocked on the door of Rey’s apartment.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Pizza delivery.”

“I didn’t order no pizza.”

“But it says here that it’s for Mr. Unkar Plutt.”

_[I want to be free of this pain. And maybe then, maybe then I can be free to be with you.]_

The door opened, and out came a blob of a man, dressed in nothing but a stained white top and boxers, his beer gut protruding from under his shirt, beady eyes wide at the sight of Kylo Ren looming over the doorway.

_[It’s probably just another silly dream. But if there’s anything knowing you have taught me, it’s that I shouldn’t let the hardships in life sway me from savouring whatever sweetness it can give.]_

“What the fu—”

Before Plutt could even back off, Kylo raised the crowbar and struck his jaw, cracking it loose under the blow and knocking the man to the ground.

_[Until we meet again,]_

Plutt crawled on the floor, groaning like the wounded animal he was. But no one would hear him. Not in this late hour, not after Kylo closed the door and upped the volume of the television. He took out the rope, found the man’s neck beneath the folds of his double chin and fastened a pretty little necklace on him, the choking sounds music to Kylo’s ears.

“This,” he growled, “This is for...”

_[Rey]_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys don't mind the open ending. I'll leave you guys to decide what became of these two. Or I might explore this world even more in the future, who knows really. In the meantime, you're free to have your own head canons.


End file.
